PubMed: Evidence-Based Medicine

Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) is defined as: "The conscientious, explicit and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients." (Sackett, Straus, Richardson, Rosenberg, & Haynes, 2000).

Searching PubMed and filtering for best evidence can be done by applying categorical limits to your PubMed searches, or by using the pre-formulated filters: Clinical Queries, and Special Queries.

Filter (or apply LIMITS) to your search results to:

• Limit by Popular Study Type
  • Restrict results by research methodology ("clinical trial," "meta-analysis," etc.)
  • Age group
  • Publication date
  • Language
  • more
• Limit by Study Type using MeSH terms

Preformulated LIMITS have been created to assist you in filtering results:

• PubMed Clinical Queries (see box on right) display citations filtered to a specific clinical study category and scope. (Pubmed equivalents)

• PubMed Special Queries provide preformulated interfaces for:

• • Health Services Research (HSR) filters: A search interface to find PubMed citations relating to health care quality or to health care costs (Pubmed equivalents)
  • Healthy People 2020: Structured Evidence Queries (SEQs) retrieves citations to published literature related to Healthy People 2020 topic areas and objectives.
  • MORE

Set up your own filters in My NCBI. (First read about setting up your "MY NCBI" account.)

• Filters overview tutorial
• Custom filters tutorial

Access PubMed Clinical Queries -- Choose Clinical Queries from the center column, Tools

To find citations using the Clinical Study Category:

1. Click Clinical Queries from the PubMed homepage.
2. Enter your search terms in the search box.
3. Select a Category: Therapy, Diagnosis, Etiology, Prognosis, or Clinical prediction guides.
4. Select a Scope: Narrow (specific search) or Broad (sensitive search).
5. Click Search.